Anneke Wills
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Anneke Wills | |
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 Anneke Wills' Autobiography |
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| Born | 20 October 1941 Rotterdam, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands |
| Occupation | actor |
Anneke Wills (born 20 October 1941 in Rotterdam, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands) is a British actress noted for her role as the companion Polly in the long-running BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who.
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[edit] Biography
Wills was born in 1941 to Anna and Alaric Willys. She later changed her name to Wills.[1] Anna was a Dutch-born Parisian catwalk model and Alaric was a Harrow educated artist.[1] Alaric was a gambler whose severe debts forced Anna to take on a string of jobs while he became a captain in the British Army.[1] Anna worked as a gardener, a teacher and a companion to a blind aristocrat.[1] The family moved around the country several times, at one point living on a houseboat in Bray, Berkshire.[1]
One of Wills' early boyfriends was Daphne du Maurier's son, Kits Browning,[1] but it was Edward Fox who was her first love.[1] At 17 she began a relationship with Anthony Newley while working on the television series The Strange World of Gurney Slade. While Newley was filming in the United States where he met Joan Collins, Wills discovered that she had conceived his child. He communicated through his manager that she was to abort the four and a half month pregnancy. Despite his new relationship with Collins, he and Anneke continued to see each other and when Wills became pregnant again she insisted on keeping the baby. By this time, she had met Michael Gough, the actor who would later play Alfred Pennyworth in four Batman films and The Celestial Toymaker in Doctor Who.
During the sixties Wills spent much of her time at the famous Troubadour Coffee Shop and The Establishment, and was part of the so-called Chelsea Set, counting among her close friends Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, The Alberts, Sammy Davis Junior, Angela Douglas and Kenneth More, Mary Quant, Sarah Miles and many more leading lights of the 1960s.
After Gough divorced his second wife, they married at Fulham register office on Valentine's Day 1965. Her daughter Polly had already been born and was later adopted by Gough.[1] At the time of the wedding she was pregnant with their son, Jasper. A year later she was offered her role in Doctor Who (also named Polly) and life seemed perfect for the young actress. However after leaving Strange Report her professional acting career drew to a close, she moved to Norfolk with Gough and found an Elizabethan farmhouse, which they bought and she threw herself into motherhood and gardening. For years they were happy but when Gough started work at the National Theatre and returned to Norfolk only on weekends, the strain began to tell. He was also womanising and though, as with Newley, Wills initially let this slide, the situation deteriorated. After two years of trying to keep the marriage together, they divorced. She walked away from the marriage without asking for any alimony.[1]
Her next move was to take a meditation course in London, which led to her find out about the teachings of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Leaving Polly, who was then 14, boarding at a Rudolf Steiner school in East Sussex, she took 12 year old Jasper with her to India, donning the orange robes of Bhagwan's cult followers and joining his ashram.[1] After initial doubt of her decision, she settled down and stayed in the ashram from 1975 to 1981. At one stage she spent ten days blindfolded, on a cushion. She then followed Bhagwan and his disciples to Oregon, where she subsisted by cleaning houses.
Wills paid a man $1000 to marry her, so she could set up an interior design business.[1] The marriage was in name only and the business didn't work out. In 1991 Wills met a 35 year-old deep-sea diver and after she had paid for him to go to drama school, he left her for a 23-year old fellow student.[1] Wills declared herself finished with love and returned to England in 1996, first moving to a little cottage in Purbeck, Dorset belonging to Edward Fox, then to Devon where she now lives.[2]
She now lives in Devon, and the first volume of her autobiography Self Portrait was released on 1st October 2007.
[edit] Career
Wills' first acting job came at the age of 11 in Child's Play as Alice Nightingale. She earned £9 which she gave to her mother.[1] Deciding she wanted to be an actress she then studied drama at the Arts Educational School in London and quickly became one of the busiest actresses of her generation. Early roles included Roberta in the first television version of The Railway Children in 1957.
She appeared as The Doctor's companion Polly, in Doctor Who from 1966 to 1967 alongside both William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton as the Doctor. (According to the DVD featurette Doctor Who Origins, she was also one of the actresses considered to play the Doctor's granddaughter, Susan Foreman). Wills left the series for fear of being typecast. Other television credits include appearances in The Avengers, The Saint, and as Evelyn in Strange Report. However she left the latter series when plans to relocate filming to Hollywood were announced.[2]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Davies, Barbara (2006-07-26), “The intriguing story of Dr Who's sidekick”, Daily Mail, <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=397508&in_page_id=1879&in_a_source=>. Retrieved on 17 February 2008
- ^ a b Swain, Gill (2005-06-15), “Hard Times of the First Sexy Dr Who Girl”, Mirror, <http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=15631652&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=hard-times-of-the-first-sexy-dr-who-girl-working-with-pat-was-such-fun---but-i-needed-to-take-screaming-name_page.html>. Retrieved on 17 February 2008
